Loved this.

I was only familiar with some of Kerouac's poetry before, but never knew he was so adept at writing haiku until discovering this book.

The haiku here are written in Kerouac's own inimitable style - that is to say he bends the traditional rules just a tad, ha. But what a result, or should I say results.

What this book offers is a treasure of vividly sketched vignettes of nature and life, more emotionally arresting than they first seem. In the past few weeks since I got this book, I've carried it with me while traveling (it's almost pocket-size) as a kind of Zen handbook, each individual haiku offering a sip of meditative revelation. I enjoyed them immensely; more so than ordinary haiku which I always find get a bit boring after a few. But Kerouac's style of writing is so infused with energy and free-spiritism that it's hard not to feel affected by them. I just love how these haiku (or haikus as Jack liked to say) seem so casual and off-the-cuff, but as we see from some images of Kerouac's notebooks in the introduction, are actually a result of self-imposed strict editing.

I should also add that there is a great introduction to this book by an enthusiastic Kerouac scholar, which was very insightful and really added to the collection.

Yep it's safe to say that this collection makes me love Kerouac even more than ever.
Just some of my favourites include:

The sky is still empty,
the rose is still
on the typewriter

One flower
on the cliffside
nodding at the canyon

Quietly pouring coffee
in the afternoon
How pleasant!

Straining at the padlock
the garage doors
at noon

The other man, just as
lonesome as I am
In this empty universe

The tree looks
like a dog
barking at Heaven

But there are so many more! If you are a fan of Kerouac's prose then you have to try his poetry side. It's, as to be expected, pretty darn cool.

See Susan Budd's review. I think Jack's best work is as a haiku poet. The form suited him and he suited the form. Many of these are excellent, and many of the ones I think just don't work were the careful result of experimenting with craft and content. The collection is a little bit worse for the inclusion of too many of these failures, in my view. Nevertheless, even Jack's failures are interesting and instructive and potentially fruitful.

هایکو یه سبک شعری ژاپنیه؛ مثل شعر نوی فارسی. توی هایکو هجاها خیلی مهمن. البته که این هجاها توی زبان ژاپنی تعریف میشن و اگه کسی بخواد هایکوی فارسی، انگلیسی و... بگه، اون هجاهای ژاپنی کاربردی ندارن.
جک کرواک اومده و هایکوی ژاپنی رو با زبان انگلیسی تطبیق داده و از دلش سبک شعری پیدا شده که هم با زبان انگلیسی همخوانی داره هم از نظر ادبی با نسخه‌ی ژاپنیش فرق داره.
موقع خوندن کتاب بیشتر از اینکه با شعری شرقی یا غربی مواجه باشیم، کلماتی غربی رو میخونیم که به شدت شیفته‌ی فرهنگ شرقن. حالت صورت کرواک رو میتونم موقع گفتن این هایکوها تصور کنم:)

Kerouac’s haikus have personalities, they’re so simple, yet they can tell a whole story. They’re full of originality, wit, and imagination. It’s such an enjoyable and light read. The book also gives historical literary info about Kerouac’s literary style/genre/movement (beatnik generation) and categorizes the haikus in recurring themes, which I appreciated. It’s also cool to read some of his haikus that have similar motifs, but are used differently.

The beauty of haiku--I suppose the beauty particularly of the haiku found in this volume, coming as it does from a prosaic Western perspective and being transmitted to a prosaic Western mind/reader--is that there is simultaneously a a degree of specificity and universality to the images (or, if you like, symbols) evoked. I have observed images so similar to some described in this book, that it is almost as though Kerouac's shade were what I'd mistaken for that cast by the tall birch in a park once sat beneath--him with with a ghostly notebook, scribbling my unconsciously dharmic doings unbeknownst to me.

Attention is love,
and

love and hate are
almost one
--mostly in

choosing
their object
and that

(object of)
one can
so easily

become the other

--contingency

Questi gli Haiku che più mi son piaciuti


Un fiore
sull’orlo di un dirupo
Ammicca al canyon

Ape, perché continui
a fissarmi?
Non sono un fiore!

Mao Tse-tung si è preso
troppi Funghi Magici
Siberiani quest’autunno

Una tartaruga s’arrampica
sopra una trave,
A testa alta

La vacca si fa una grande
favolosa cacata, e si volta
A guardarmi

La mia farfalla è venuta
a posarsi sul mio fiore,
Me Signore

Il sogno di Dio,
È soltanto
Un sogno


ma soprattutto questa

Gengis Khan guarda fiero
verso est, con occhi rossi,
Bramando la vendetta d’autunno

quando leggo nelle note, da un taccuino di Kerouac del 1965:
"Una sequenza su Gengis Khan deve cominciare con lui che vaga per la steppa solo e ubriaco, e quando giunge all’accampamento mongolo entra in una tenda e si siede – poi scopre che è la sua tenda (Le guardie e le guide l’hanno seguito per tutta la notte sul suo pony ubriaco)"

As much as I enjoy Kerouac, especially his esoteric/unconventional approach to poetics, I have enjoyed other collections of his poetry/haiku a little better than this one, which achieved its intention of being a comprehensive overview of his approach to the haiku form at the expense of a lighter/less selective editorial hand that resulted in a somewhat unbalanced, meandering straight-through read. Depending on what you're looking for, this may be a bad or a good thing.

I can generally recommend both Scripture of the Golden Eternity and Pomes All Sizes as being better representations (to my taste, at any rate) of Kerouac as poet and spiritual aspirant.

However, as a late entrant to the Kerouac canon, I do appreciate this volume for its chronological structure and the depth of its insight into Kerouac's pursuit of form.

"Calcio mancato
allo sportello del frigo,
ad ogni modo si è chiuso." (Pag.14)

"La Luna nuova
è l'unghia di un dito
del piede di Dio" (Pag.38)

"Sesso-sbattersi per procreare
laddove
la Provvidenza lo permette" (Pag. 67)

"Due nubi si baciano e
si sostengono guardandosi
l'un l'altra." (Pag. 122)

Kerouac mi piace proprio. E' riuscito a manipolare la struttura base dell'haiku classico, lo ha rivoltato e lo ha adeguato al suo tempo e alla sua parlata. E in tutto questo non ha comunque stravolto il senso poetico e intimistico che l'haiku deve conservare per essere definito tale. Bravo, bravo e ancora bravo.

Fantastic.
Kerouac displays true mastership of this form of poetry. Intelligently avoiding the restricting rules of traditional, conventional Japanese haiku, Kerouac invents the form here which he calls 'pops' - short, concise three-line poems which are very effective. Where Kerouac does not follow the 'rules' syllabically, he does in terms of including seasonal words - the moon, the sun, leaves, noon - all symbolic of the season in which the haiku was written, even the 'winter fly' which ingeniously refers to the END of winter, i.e. the advent of Spring.

Out of all of Kerouac's poetry, I believe that this has to be some of his strongest work, right up there with the ingenious, the timeless Mexico City Blues. Many people wrote Jack off because of his beliefs about spontaneous prose and Truman Capote's old hack that he was just "typing" not "writing" - well, time has shown, with increasing evidence, that he was a significant writer in American society, who in the later half of the twentieth century was apparently told by God to "go moan for Man" and someone whose quality of writing has consistently shown that he deserves more attention and acclaim.

Právě ve chvílích, kdy Jack Kerouac opouští své milované kočky, ptáčky a "měsíc v různých měsících" a dostává se na zem, je pro mě nejsilnější. Je pro mě mistrem zachycení lidských maličkostí a nálad a akcí, jeho haiku sluší pohyb - jako kdyby stejně jako on měly problém stát na jednom místě.

Some of these haiku are great, but I didn't care for the majority of them. I found myself mildly dreading reading more and missed a few of the gems buried among the duds. Several of the other reviews here on goodreads include some of the best ones, but here's one I like that I didn't see quoted:

A turtle sailing along
on a log,
Head up

These “American Haikus” and “Pops” were a delight to read. The introduction, written by the book’s editor, Regina Weinreich, was short but very informative.

When I think of haiku I think of nature related subjects. Kerouac included nature elements but he wasn’t exclusive to flowers, trees, etc. I loved the unexpected way he would add modern twists to his take on haiku.

His haiku are very self reflective and seem to be rather intimate. He captures what he is seeing and feeling and thinking in just a cluster of words that bring sharp images to the readers mind. It is quite impressive. They read as very informal and sometimes funny observations of the world around him. Sometimes he’s on his porch, at his desk, in the city, on the road, or on a mountain. But he makes you feel as if you are right there with him.

At the end of this book I found myself wanting to read more Haiku which is something I never thought I’d hear myself say!!